Yves Saint Laurent Lip Liner

Having just written a review on my Lancome red lipstick, I'm going to write a review on the lip liner I bought to go with it. Lip liner is important to prevent lipstick bleeding into lines around your mouth or smudging. Being only 25 I don't have any lines yet but lipstick can still smudge! It's especially important if lipstick is bright or dark as any smudging will look even worse.

I needed to buy a lip pencil as, having never worn lipstick for years, I didn't own any lip liner at all. I first looked at the Lancome range, but they didn't seem to have a lip pencil in the right shade. However, I was able to find a suitable shade in the Yves Saint Laurent range. I purchased the lip liner from Debenhams as they had a Beauty Club points offer on at the time.

***Price and Availability***
The Yves Saint Laurent range is widely available from Boots and department stores such as Debenhams and John Lewis, as well as from discount online retailers on occasion. This lip liner costs £15, which is expensive but I do feel it is worth it, as I will explain below.

***Packaging***
I don't like the Yves Saint Laurent gold packaging as much as the Lancome black and silver packaging, but this is really just personal taste. The packaging is sophisticated and expensive-looking. The lip pencil comes in a thin gold-coloured cardboard box with the YSL logo and product information. This is a good idea as it prevents the lid of the pencil falling off in your makeup bag. Inside, the pencil itself is black with a gold lid. The end of the pencil is coloured red: I suspect the colour matches the shade of the pencil. The pencil resembles a normal lead pencil, with six sides - this allows for an easy grip.

***Shades***
The lip pencil comes in a number of shades to suit all kinds of lipsticks, including a few different reds, berry colours, pinks, neutrals and browns. Naturally there aren't as many shades as there would be in a lipstick range, but there should be something to suit. I chose shade 19 as being the red which would go best with my lipstick.

***The product***
I apply lip liner after scrubbing my lips and applying lip balm, but before applying lipstick. I find the liner goes on very easily with the lightest touch and is simple to use. If I make a mistake it is easy to wipe off.

The liner means that my lipstick doesn't smudge or bleed and if the lipstick wears off I am l not left with a horrible line where the lipliner remains (which is NOT a good look!). The liner seems to last well though, even when I reapply the lipstick it still doesn't smudge or bleed though I rarely reapply the liner (I don't usually carry it about with me).

I've noticed that after several uses the liner is still sharp, which I put down to the fact that you only need a light touch to apply it. This means that it will need to be sharpened only rarely, which in turn means that it will last a long time. Therefore the £15 price tag actually seems like quite good value.

***The Verdict***
This is a very good quality lip pencil which I think is worth the £15 price tag. Of course if you like to experiment with many different shades, this might not be the best product to buy as it will work out very expensive for lots of lip pencils! However if you have one or two shades that you come back to and wear a lot then I highly recommend this product as it will last a long time and does what it is supposed to do. I would certainly consider repurchasing.